Showing posts with label Potatoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Potatoes. Show all posts

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Are my potatoes OK?

I know I've left that July 4th post lingering, but I wanted to get this one up. I'll elaborate on the other one soon.

The past couple of days, coinciding with the summer weather that has finally arrived, I've noticed that our potato plants don't seem to be doing so great. Many of them are turning yellow and getting all droopy - quite clearly, they're dying. Now, I know that eventually the plants die back, but I don't think that is supposed to happen for quite some time. But this is our first attempt at potatoes, so I really don't know. Here's what some of the plants are looking like (click on the image for a bigger view):


I'm starting to get nervous about our potato crop (or potential lack thereof). So, while in the garden this afternoon tying up some of the tomatoes, I decided to do a little digging around the potatoes to see what was going on. At first I couldn't find anything that remotely resembled a potato (unless you count rocks). Now I was very worried. I decided to try another spot and after a few seconds my fingers brushed up against something that seemed promising. I carefully brushed more dirt away and to my great surprise, pulled up this guy:


Looks like the potatoes have done just fine. :)

Monday, June 29, 2009

Veggie Garden Roundup

Just wanted to give a quick run down of what we have growing in our home vegetable garden (and other vegetable "areas") along with some pics.

Main Garden Bed

Potatoes (2 varieties)
Yukon Gold
Russian Banana Fingerling

Summer Squash (1 variety)
Cocozelle Zucchini (x4)


Tomatoes (16 varieties!)
Brandywine (x2)
Super Sweet 100 (x1)
Caruso (x2)
Prince Borghese (x1)
Yellow Perfection (x1)
Pole Perfect Purple (x1)
Red Grape (x2)
Sun Gold (x2)
Sweet Chelsea (x1)
Mountain Princess (x1)
Caspian Pink (x2)
Mountain Delight (x1)
Margherita (x1)
Cherokee Purple (x2)
Garden Peach (x2)
Green Zebra (x2)



Onions (2 varieties)
Copra
Cippolini


Broccoli (x4) - FAILED (bunny food and already flowering)


Peas and Beans (3 varieties) - limited success
Oregan Giant (edible pod pea)
Blauhilde (pole bean)
Royal Burgandy (bush bean)


Container Garden


Peppers (4 varieties)
Thai Dragon (x2)
Red Beauty (x2)
Sweet Banana (x1)
Carmen Sweet Italian (x1)


Carmen Peppers - don't they look incredible? (more on these in a later post)

Tomatoes (4 more varieties)
Matt's Wild Cherry
Sweet Pea Currant
Small Fry
Mr. Ugly

Misc
Eggplant (x1)
Garden Huckleberry (x1)
Ground Cherry - Cossack Pineapple (x1)


Cold Frame #1
Swiss Chard (Charlotte)
Carrots (Danvers 126)


Cold Frames #2
replanted with leaf lettuce and arugula after recent tragedy
(not looking particularly promising)

Cold Frame #3 and #4 - new this year
Being re-evaluated after limited success with leaf lettuce, beets, and swiss chard and complete failure with purple dragon carrots (100% failed germination)

Other areas
Asparagus bed
Rhubarb bed
Herb containers (basil, parsley, oregano, cilantro)

Wow. I knew we had a lot, but I've never tried listing everything all at once. And this doesn't even include our small community garden patch! We must be nuts. Seriously, I'm quite happy with what we've accomplished so far - our successes seem to outnumber (or at least outweigh) our failures. Can't really complain about that.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Planting Potatoes

A couple of years ago, Linda, the kids and I visited some friends who had taken over their family farm in Pennsylvania. We happened to be there during potato harvest time. I knew how potaotes grew - I understood it intellectually - but I never witnessed it. So, we all helped dig out the potatoes and I can honsestly say that I was amazed. Seriously, I stood awed by the fact that I took a shovel, stuck it into the ground, turned over the soil, and half a dozen beautiful potatoes were right there. It was like digging for buried treasure I guess.

Well, today I planted our first batch of potatoes - setting the stage for our own treasure hunt in a few months. We ordered two different sets of seed potatoes - Yukon Gold and Russian Banana Fingerlings. I cut each potatoe into pieces - each with a eye or two (or, in some cases, a sprout or two) - let them callus over a bit overnight, and planted them a few inches deep.